To mark the 15th anniversary of TVNewser this month, Adweek honored the 30 Most Impactful TV Newsers of the Past 15 Years, spotlighting the personalities and execs who were instrumental in the industry’s incredible decade-and-a-half evolution. TVNewser will be presenting expanded versions of each honoree’s interview.
Bill Whitaker
- Job now: Correspondent, 60 Minutes, CBS
- Job 15 years ago: Correspondent, CBS Evening News
Adweek: What were you doing 15 years ago (in January 2004)?
Whitaker: In January, 2004 I was spending time in Eagle, Colorado covering the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case. The weather was freezing, but the case was heated. The previous summer Bryant had been arrested after a 19 year old employee at a hotel near Vail filed a complaint claiming the LA Lakers basketball star had raped her. While much of the national spotlight was drawn to the celebrity aspect of the case, we focused on the legal issues: the defense effort to have the accuser’s medical records and explicit evidence of her sexual history admitted; how Colorado had handled similar cases in the past. This pre-“Me Too” era case was dismissed when Bryant’s accuser declined to testify. Her civil suit ended in a settlement.
What’s your favorite professional moment of the past 15 years?
My 60 Minutes team recently teamed up with reporters at the Washington Post to investigate the roles of government and industry in the opioid epidemic ravaging communities across the country. There were 350,000 opioid related deaths in the U.S. between 2000 and 2016. For a year we interviewed dozens of people, dug through reams of public records, filed suit in federal court to get our hands on others. We reported how, at the height of the crisis, Congress passed legislation that tied the hands of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), making it harder for the agency to stop drug distributors from flooding American communities with the powerfully addictive pills – basically allowing pharmaceutical companies to keep shipping pills, piling up profits with little fear of retribution. All the while Americans were dying. The sponsor of the bill was Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino. He had been tapped by President Trump to be the country’s new Drug Czar – the official in charge of handling the crisis. Two days after our report ran, detailing how the drug industry had spent $120-million lobbying Congress and our lawmakers passed a bill that helped industry, but ended up hurting people – Congressman Marino withdrew his name from consideration as Drug Czar. Our report made a difference. The reach and impact of 60 Minutes still astound me after four years with the broadcast.
What is the biggest way that TV news has changed over the past 15 years?
The technology. When I first started with CBS News, our cell phones were the size of a small briefcase. When we would cover a big story, we’d sometimes team up with dozens of correspondents, producers, photographers, editors and technicians. When I covered the tsunami in Japan in 2011, a producer, photographer and I carried satellite equipment in a backpack that allowed us to go live from the scene. Not long ago, CBS News did a live shot from the deck of a ship full of migrants at a Mediterranean seaport using a smart phone. Now everything is smaller; the equipment, the on-site staff. I must admit I miss the teamwork and camaraderie of the old days, but I marvel at the technological leaps.
Who have you learned the most from in your career? What did they teach you?
My first job in television news was at KQED, the public station in San Francisco. The anchor of the newscast was Belva Davis. She had made history as the first African American woman TV reporter on the West Coast and over the years had become a Bay Area icon. She became my friend and mentor. Belva is smart, tenacious, unflappable and had the best Rolodex in town (yes, we had Rolodexes back then). She knows everybody and is endlessly curious about the world around her and the people who shape it. She led the newsroom like a conductor directing an orchestra. She knew just the right notes to hit in her delivery. I learned from her it’s possible, indeed necessary to remain cool under deadline pressure; that a reporter can be both tough and respectful; that telling people’s stories is a privilege and in TV news, hard work is its own reward.
I also must say the late Bob Simon. His writing cut through the chatter. It was concise and evocative. He didn’t just present the facts, he painted a picture with his words. I used to study his scripts to learn how he did what he did. One of the first phone calls I got when it was announced I’d be joining 60 Minutes was from Bob Simon. It meant the world to me.
Which of your competitiors do you admire?
I recently shared a stage with NBC’s Pete Williams. I told him, I’m a big fan of his. He knows his beat, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, intimately. I’ve seen him step before the camera just minutes after a major news story has broken and calmly, with his depth of knowledge, put it in perspective, make it all make sense to viewers. That’s a real talent.
Also, [NPR Fresh Air host] Terry Gross. Her interview style makes people comfortable, makes them want to open up to her. I always learn something about her subjects I didn’t know before. She makes it seem easy. It’s not.
What do you know now about the business that you didn’t 15 years ago?
That television is more than the sum of its parts. When I first started out as a reporter, I thought it was all about my words, my presentation, the facts, the deadlines. Those are still the foundation of everything I do. But over the years I’ve come to realize that television is like a window that allows viewers to see so much more of the people before the camera. They can see the love of a mother for a child. They can see the grief of the spouse of a fallen soldier. They can see the coldness in the eyes of a killer. I don’t have to say it, viewers can see it. That should be obvious, it’s called TELEVISION after all. But as a younger reporter, I didn’t truly realize the power of the picture. Now, when possible, I try to say less and let the pictures say more.
What has been your toughest professional challenge during the past 15 years?
I think my toughest professional challenge has been making the transition from daily news to 60 Minutes. As a reporter for The Evening News my job was to present the news of the day concisely with the two or three voices that could best illuminate the event or issue. Reporter involvement was my asking a question, if there was time for it. A story often was done in a few hours, then on to the next. 60 Minutes is a different animal, it’s all about the interview. Extended questions and answers by correspondents and interview subjects are the centerpiece of every 60 Minutes story. Instead of going for the quick “sound bite” I now must engage people in lengthy conversations. It requires a different mental muscle, a lot more research, a lot more time. If I flub the interview, I flub the story. Luckily, I’ve got the help of some of the best producers in broadcast news. Once I began to settle in and it clicked that it is just a conversation (and there are few things I like more than discussion and debate), it became easier – not easy, but easier. Like my whole career has been, this a work in progress. I hope like a fine wine, I’m getting better with age.